Atomic Habits - I just finished up this audiobook by James Clear. If you've read "The Power of Habit," this is a good follow-up that builds on its concepts. I particularly like the "Habits + Deliberate Practice = Mastery" equation.

As I've written previously (see In Defense of the Hip Thrust), I'm a fan of barbell hip thrusts (and supine bridges). Like most exercises, though, there are some common technique pitfalls. This week, on my Instagram, I featured the four most common mistakes I see in this regard. Check them out:

Anyone who's followed this blog for any length of time knows that I'm a big fan of landmine presses for a number of reasons:

1. As a "free scapula" pressing exercise, they're an effective way to train scapular upward rotation.

2. They're much more shoulder friendly than overhead presses.

3. They provide a great core stability challenge.

4. You can implement a lot of variety in terms of stance (tall/half-kneeling, standing, split-stance, rotational, etc) and lower body contributions. This week's feature is a great highlight in this regard:

This drill fits well as a first exercise on a full body day and pairs well with horizontal or vertical pulling. I really like it late in the offseason when we're trying to keep sessions a bit shorter and get extra bang for our training buck. I'd do sets of 3-5 reps per side.

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If you're looking for a quick and easy way to expand your rowing exercise selection, definitely try the standing 1-arm cable row with offset kettlebell hold.

Holding a kettlebell in the racked position on the non-working arm not only adds a core control element, but also facilitates thoracic (upper back) rotation away from the rowing arm. We know that left thoracic rotation works hand-in-hand with right serratus anterior recruitment (and vice versa), so this is an awesome progression we like to use with our throwing athletes. You could progress this particular version by adding a bit more upper back rotation to the left on the eccentric (lowering) portion of each rep.

I didn't get around to publishing this weekly feature last week, so I've got a bit of content stockpiled. Here was the best of the bunch:

Ace in the Hole: Corey Kluber at Cressey - New England Baseball Journal just ran this cover feature and article about Corey Kluber's training at Cressey Sports Performance - Massachusetts in their February edition.

This yr, for complex training, we are doing more heavy axial loaded single-leg work before unilateral plyos. Here’s anterior-loaded split squats from pins for 3/side, rest 30s, then heidens for 3/side. Do 4-5 rounds of this pairing as 1st exercise on lower body day. @RyanFelt26pic.twitter.com/lh9ZEDl6ln

In light of the busy baseball offseason, I'm long overdue for an update to this series. So, here goes!

1. Have a long-term plan, but not necessarily a long-term program.

The other day, an observational visitor to CSP-FL asked me if I had a big, overarching goal for all our professional baseball players. My response was simple: "Minor league guys need to get through five 4-week programs, and big leaguers need to get through four."

The MLB regular season always ends on a Sunday, so the math is actually easy to do. We know most MLB guys report around February 14, which gives us 19.5 weeks for the offseason. That 3.5 week "buffer" accounts for some time off, some vacation, a few days over the holidays, and travel to Spring Training. We "give" a little bit on guys who played well into the postseason in the previous year.

Over this 16 weeks of training, we transition from active recovery, improving mobility and building work capacity, to building strength and power, to transitioning into more specific skill development. It's all something we've become comfortable handling as long as we can get in those four program blocks. However, while we have a long-term plan, we don't write all the programs up in advance. Why? Very simply, what you put on paper for a January program when you write it three months in advance almost always needs to be modified prior to the time when it's actually being executed. Even the best players on the planet who've established really good offseason routines have to call audibles on the fly as various things come up throughout the offseason.

Have a general framework in place, but don't be so rigidly adherent to it that you can't pivot on the fly over the course of several months. It'll save you time and make your programming more effective if you write the specific components of your offseason progressions when the time is at hand.

This good vs. bad stiffness interaction is taking place in every single movement we prescribe and coach. If we don't appreciate functional anatomy and understand how to tone down the bad and tone up the good, we simply can't be efficient coaches.

Last week, I hit a personal record (PR) with five reps at 600lbs on my conventional deadlift.

PRs asid, though, it was actually a pretty good example of how off the predicted max charts really are.

After this set, I plugged 600 pounds and 5 reps into four separate predicted max calculators I found on the internet. The projections for my 1RM were anywhere from 675 pounds all the way up to 705 pounds. That 675 might be a possibility, but taking that to a 705 might very well be two years worth of specialized deadlift training.

Predicted max calculators have their place, but don't think for a second that they're perfectly accurate. And, they're even less accurate with a) more experienced lifters and b) lifters with a heavy fast twitch profile.

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A mistake you’ll see in stiff-leg deadlift technique is slamming the knees into hyperextension on the lowering portion. This limits hip hinging and instead put stress on passive restraints of the knee. The kneecap shouldn’t be behind the heel; it’s a stiff (not straight) leg DL. pic.twitter.com/rWnhVxt2tt

The 1-leg dumbbell pullover is a nice variation on a classic. It’ll add a rotary stability challenge to what is normally considered an upper body and anterior core drill. I’m using this variation a bit more this time of year (with throwing volume and intensity ramping up), as you can get a good training effect with less external loading.

We'll usually program this for 3-4 sets of 4-5 reps per side. It pairs well with exercises that aren't concrete push or pull exercises: Turkish Get-ups, kettlebell windmills, and bottoms-up kettlebell carries. I even like pairing it up with TRX Ys, as it's effectively the opposite pattern. Enjoy!

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3. Landmine Lateral Lunges - This is an exercise I thought up on the fly while working with three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer, and we liked it so much that it's become a mainstay in his offseason programming.

5. Knee-to-Knee Rollover Medicine Ball Stomp - this new medicine ball drill was a power training exercise thought up by my CSP-FL business partner, Shane Rye. The knee-to-knee approach encourages the athlete to stay in the back hip longer.

I'll be back soon with the top guest posts of 2018!

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We use yoga push-ups a lot in our training programs, but one challenge with incorporating them over the long-term with more advanced athletes is that they're hard to load up. You can't use bands or chains as external resistance because they slide over the course of the set. And, weight vests really can't provide enough external resistance without getting too bulky and cumbersome. Luckily, there are a few other ways to progress the drill:

1. Slideboard Yoga Push-ups

2. 1-leg Feet-Elevated Yoga Push-ups

3. Feet-Elevated Spiderman Yoga Push-ups

4. Yoga Push-up with Opposite Arm Reach

5. Controlled Tempo

Last, but not least, you can simply slow down the tempo at which the yoga push-up variations are performed. I like adding a full exhale at the top position, too.

Speaking of upper extremity progressions, if you're looking for some more information on how we assess, coach, and program for the shoulder girdle, be sure to check out my resource, Sturdy Shoulder Solutions.

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